Current Affairs India - 21 August 2014

1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated NTPC's thermal power station at Mouda near Nagpur to the nation today. In his speech, he has given more importance to infrastructure for any nation to develop.

He has also dedicated the Ranchi-Dharamjaygarh-Sipat 765 KV inter-regional power transmission line to the nation in Jharkhand earlier the day. This line is the first inter-regional link between the eastern and western region.

2. The Reserve Bank of India introduced a minimum set of guidelines for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) on lending against shares in order to reduce volatility in the capital market due to NBFCs offloading shares pledged by borrowers who have defaulted on loans. As per the new guidelines, NBFCs with asset size of Rs 100 crore and above, the NBFCs have to maintain a loan-to-value (of shares pledged) of 50% and accept only Group 1 securities as collateral for loans of a value more than Rs 5 lakh. The guidelines come into effect immediately.

All NBFCs with asset size of Rs 100 crore and above should report online to stock exchanges information on the shares pledged in their favour by borrowers to avail themselves of loans.

3. HDFC Bank has been ranked as India-s most valuable brand with a brand value of USD 9.4 billion, as per the first edition of the BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Indian Brands ranking published in Mumbai on 20th August. Bharti Airtel secured the second position with USD 8.2 billion, State Bank of India (SBI) at third with 6.8 billion and ICICI Bank at fourth position with USD 3.53 billion in the same list.

4. Five Indian companies, including Hindustan Unilever and Tata Consultancy Services, are placed in the list of Forbes- list of the world-s 100 most innovative companies that investors think are most likely to -generate big, new growth ideas--, published yesterday. Hindustan Unilever is ranked 14th, followed by IT major Tata Consultancy Services (57), Larsen & Toubro (58), Sun Pharma Industries (65) and Bajaj Auto (96).